afraid of questions because a questionncould sliow he’s afraid people will findnout who he is”; “Somebody who all hendoes is repeat his fate.” Tlie exceedinglynhuman Abramowitz demands his freedomnand gets it. He .striiggles pait of thenway out of his horse-body and becomesn”a free centaur.” neither beast nornGoldberg.nOne of the few characters whosenprofession Malamud declines to tell us isnMendel, the loving father of an idiot son.nDying, Mendel wants to get his son on antrain to California, where he can livenwith a relative. Ginzburg the ticketncollector blocks them; his gaze terrifiesnMendel, who dares to struggle for hisnson.nGinzburg, staring at himself in Mendel’sneyes, saw mirrored in them thenextent of his own awful wrath. Henbeheld a shimmering, starry blindingnliglit that produced darkness.nGinzburg looked astounded. “Who,nme?”nGod recognizes His own cruelty becausenhe can see it reflected in the eyesnof a human being. His most notablencreation. Only then He shows mercy,nlets the son be saved.nSalvation and freedom obsess Singer’snprotagonist as well. But whereas Malamud’snstories express opinions indirectly,nrequiring interpretation. Singer allowsnhis protagonist to speak almost directlynfor Singer, llie opinions expressed contradict,neven denigrate, the opinions ofnthe dominant “culture” of our time. Thisnmay account for the book’s unusualnpublishing history.nThe Penitent appeared in serial formnin 1973, then as a book one year later.nFarrar, Straus & Giroux published it innEnglish in 1983, surely an unusual delaynin view of the author’s prestige. Accordingnto the dust jacket copy, althougli “thennoA’el was immediately recognized by itsnreaders as one of Singer’s most serious,nand perhaps finest, works,” some criticsn”predicted it would never be translated”nChronicles of Culturen”because of its inwardness.” “Inwardness?”nNo; Jewishness was the realnoffense—and not the Jewishness thatnaccommodates itself to the world andnmeets with toleration from all but thenvi’orst anti-Semites. Singer presents usnwith a Jew who speaks for the Judaismnthat spurns the vS’ays of this world, and heninsists that we listen to this Jew respectfully.nSinger is right to insist. ‘SX’ith hisnprotagonist, Joseph Shapiro, he shows ancontemporary man reconstructing lostnfaith in God.nShapiro briefly recalls his early life as anyoung “progressive” from a Polishnrabbinical family. After sur’iving ‘Worldn”War II, he married, came to America, andnmade his fortune in real estate. “”When anperson makes a good deal of money butnlacks faith, he begins to concern himselfnwith one thing: how to squeeze in all thenpleasure possible.” Adultery follows, ofncourse; “the loose female has becomenthe deity of America.” In an indirect way.nso does tolerance of the violent crimes ofnthose who w^ant quick gratification: “InnAmerica, as in Sodom^, the perpetratornwent free and the witness rotted in jaU.n.And all this was done in the name of liberalism.n… Everyone knows this, but tn,talkingnabout it and you’re called thenworst niunes.” His life eventually causednShapiro to suffer spiritual and physicalnnausea. His nausea is not to be confusednwith that described by Sartre (which wasnessentially borrowed from Nietzsche),nfor it leads liim to tlie opposite conclusion:nall modern philosophy has a singlentheme: we don’t know anything andncannot know anything …. But tonwhat did this lead? Their ethicsnweren’t worth a fig and committed nonone to anything. You could be versednin all their philosophies and still be anNa2i or a member of the KGB.nThe likes of Heidegger, Sartre, andnMerleau-Ponty could object to this, butnIn the forthcoming issue ofChronicles of Culture:nThe Media and Meaningn”What this history conclusively demonstrates is that the NewnYork Times has routinely encouraged reporting of the newsnthat supports its political orthodoxy. This orthodoxy includes;nan accommodationlst spirit with the Soviet Union, a resistancento the deployment of American troops abroad for any reason,nan unreasoning hatred of Nixon Republicanism, a desire fornretribution against any anticommunist hardliners, and anninsouciant belief that any self-proclaimed revolutionarynrepresents the indigenous ‘will of the people.’ Braley doesn’tnsay this; he doesn’t have to. The evidence speaks compeUinglynand the conclusion is unavoidable. The New York Times doesnnot report ‘all the news that’s fit to print’; it reports all the newsnthat’s print to fit.”n-^from “The Media as Fun-House Mirror”nby Herbert I. LondonnOpinions & Views—Commendables—Waste ofMoney—In FocusnPerceptibles—-Tlie Atnetlain Prosceniiun—Jou^^nNotables—Screen—-A Prudent Progressive—Liberal Culturennn